“But I feel,” said Ivan, “all the time like I’m clinging to a rotting old pier over a cold sea, and I’m soaked to the skin from the spray and the rain. And it’s all I can do to hang on to the edge of the pier, because – there’s a woman in the water, a woman with dead eyes who’s part of the ocean itself, and she’s got one icy hand around my ankle and she’s trying to drag me down with her into the ocean.”